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May 3, 2006

The phantom purchas pains

The saga of my notebook purchase woes, which was started almost a week ago, continues :p The last I wrote, I was supposed to get the RAM upgrade on Monday. And now the continuation of the exciting saga …

On Monday, I learn that it is a public holiday and that no shops are open due to it being May Day. And of course, the guys at the computer shop were either ignorant of it or didn’t care. Well, nothing to be done. So I waited till yesterday and call them back. The salesman who dealt with me is not there. I call him on his mobile. He tells me that he’s at a meeting at their head office and gives me the name of another sales guy at their shop and asks me to ask him about the RAM.

I call the guy and ask him about the RAM and he’s like, I’ll find out and call you back in ten minutes and takes down my phone number. Ten minutes go by – nothing. Twenty minutes. Still nothing. I call him back and he’s like, "Oh yeah, I’ll call you back in ten minutes – can I have your phone number again?" He’s done nothing in all that time! I just give him my phone number again since there is no point in getting angry with them anymore. They are just not going to care. Of course, he doesn’t call back after ten minute or for that matter, twenty minutes. I call him back and he says that he had to speak to the other sales guy (the one I originally spoke to) and that the other guy will call me back in 15 minutes. I’m like, "I call him and he says that I should call you and now you say that I have to talk to him to get this resolved?" and the guy can only stutter something incomprehensible.

Fifteen minute go by and not surprisingly, there is no call from the other guy. I wait another five minutes and then call him and he says that they don’t have the RAM because of shipping delays and that I’ll have it on Friday "for sure". Of course, knowing how good their assurances have been so far, I’m not holding my breath :p Come Friday, I’m almost certain that I’ll get another excuse. This is the way they do business here in Sri Lanka and people wonder about us being a third-world nation? If they had a category for fourth-world nations, we should probably be demoted to that, the way these guys do things. Ah well, the joys of life :p